The beginnings of intellectual plurality

Though the orthodox school certainly dominated the written output in Australian economic history in the 1950s and 1960s, there were other instances where different methodologies were adopted by scholars. Ted Wheelwright engaged in quantitative studies of Australian firms from the perspective of political economy. A more deductive approach was adopted by McCarty, Dunsdorfs, and Davidson, with the testing of various theories of Australia’s historic development. There was also a contingent who maintained elements of the analytical approach, with a realist, narrative-based method, and a greater use of qualitative sources. Although these smaller intellectual traditions lacked the output, personnel, and reach to rival the orthodox school, some elements formed the basis of intellectual plurality in the 1970s and 1980s.

117 See Coleman, 'Historiography'; Lloyd, 'Analytical frameworks'; Lloyd, 'Economic history and policy'; Schedvin, 'Midas and the merino'; Sinclair, 'Economic history'.

153 7.2.1. Quantitative political economy

Wheelwright contributed to the economic history community through his study of Australian firms, gathering data on shareholders and board members of major Australian companies.¹¹⁸ His approach was quantitative, with a procedure that very closely

resembled the statistical works of the orthodox school. Wheelwright described the sources and methods of data collection, and then presented the extensive quantitative material.

However, these works fundamentally differed from the orthodox school, as they were built around neither neoclassical economic categories, nor contemporary economic theory. The discussion was a vehicle to discuss power in Australian society rather than to provide insights about production, efficiency, or other economic concepts.

Wheelwright cited precisely none of the other economic historians working at the time, and was only cited minimally by other authors. Wheelwright’s citation similarity scores, presented in Appendix F, demonstrates this, with negative scores with most other authors in this corpus. This indicates that there was no relationship, or a small inverse

relationship, between Wheelwright’s citation patterns and those of other economic historians. Wheelwright also had limited connections to the community through social interactions, with co-location ties only with members of the Sydney group. Although citation analysis, as argued, is not very good for determining adherents to the orthodox school, in this case it confirms Wheelwright’s social and intellectual groupings.

Wheelwright’s work was only minimally influential at this time, though it did furnish a quantitative basis for the historical political economy tradition, led by Wheelwright and Ken Buckley in Sydney, in the 1980s.¹¹⁹

7.2.2. Deductive approaches

McCarty, Dunsdorfs and Davidson adopted a more deductive approach in this period, using their particular case studies to test various theories. McCarty published an article in the AEHR in 1964 which applied the Canadian staples thesis to the study of Australian economic development in the first half of the nineteenth century. By attempting to fit Australia’s experience within a theory developed for another context, rather than using economic theory to explain trends found in data, McCarty’s approach fundamentally

118 E. L. Wheelwright, Ownership and control of Australian companies: A study of 102 of the largest public companies incorporated in Australia, Sydney: Law Book Co of Australasia, 1957.

119 See the discussion of political economy approaches in chapter 9.

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differed from the work of the orthodox school.¹²⁰ Blainey, similarly, used qualitative sources and realist elements to ‘test’ staples thesis, a theory of Australian mineral discovery, and the effect of distance on Australia’s development.¹²¹

Dunsdorfs’ also adopted a deductive approach. His study of the wheat industry included both an historical and a statistical section.¹²² In the latter, Dunsdorfs used regression analysis inspired by contemporary agricultural economics to test correlations between area-yield and factors such as rainfall and wheat prices.¹²³ Though assembling statistical, macroeconomic material was certainly within the purview of the orthodox school, using it to deductively test the validity of economic theory was not. Davidson’s work on Australia’s agricultural industry and historical geography similarly used deductive economic analysis in the form of benefit-cost calculations of agriculture in certain areas, and the economic effects of drought.¹²⁴ Davidson built his framework for comparison from a priori

assumptions about the operation of the industry and the economy.

The most unified criticism of these works from within the Australian economic history community was of the deductive approach. The AEHR ran a series of follow-up articles to McCarty’s initial staples analysis, from a diverse range of contributors. Noel Butlin criticised McCarty’s approach for being “deliberately abstract”; Blainey, although he reviewed the externalism of the piece largely favourably, commented that a North American approach may not be “entirely fit for export”; and Abbott commented that the application of a ready-made theory to a situation from which it was not derived was to

“abandon historical methods altogether”.¹²⁵ Oral history sources have agreed that there was some antagonism between the orthodox scholars and McCarty. Dingle has argued that Butlin “attacked” McCarty’s work on staples thesis, and Schedvin has recalled that

although an externalist interpretation was appropriate, the staples thesis was not the right vehicle.¹²⁶ Alan Birch made similar criticisms of Dunsdorfs’ deductive work, commenting that although any economic historian must be guided by a particular model, there is

120 Oral history sources from Sinclair, Dingle, Blainey, and Schedvin have confirmed this.

121 G. Blainey, 'A theory of mineral discovery: Australia in the nineteenth century', Economic History Review, 23, 2, 1970; Blainey, Tyranny of distance; G. Blainey, 'Technology in Australian history', Business Archives and History, 4, 2, 1964.

122 Dunsdorfs, Australian wheat-growing industry.

123 Dunsdorfs, Australian wheat-growing industry.

124 B. R. Davidson, Australia, wet or dry? The physical and economic limits to the expansion of irrigation, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969.

125 N. G. Butlin, 'Growth in a trading world: The Australian economy, heavily disguised', Australian Economic History Review, 4, 2, 1964, p.158; Blainey, 'Technology', p.126; Abbott, 'Staple theory', p.153.

126 Dingle/Davison; Schedvin interviews.

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danger of neglecting the study of the past by concentrating too much on the trends in regressions.¹²⁷

Criticism over approach, and the dominance of orthodox methodology rendered these deductive works minimally influential in this period. McCarty’s application of staples thesis was not widely pursued, in its pure form, by either himself or others; the use of regression analysis like Dunsdorfs’ work did not emerge elsewhere until the 1970s (and was not directly inspired by him);¹²⁸ and Davidson’s work, although historical in scope, did not engage with (or have very much impact on) the economic history community.¹²⁹ The citation analysis reveals very low levels of formal influence from these works, with Table 7.1 indicating only modest in-bonacich power scores for McCarty, Davidson and

Dunsdorfs.¹³⁰ While McCarty’s work did not enjoy much prominence in terms of citations, this approach has been remembered as influential by members of his local community.¹³¹ Sinclair, for instance, recalled that his exposure to the staples theory through McCarty meant that he adopted a “modified” version of this theory in his later work.¹³²

The influence of McCarty and Dunsdorfs emerged through their integration of a range of material in their own work. Table 7.2 indicates that their prominence in the community was much higher if measured by betweenness rather than in-bonacich power.¹³³

Betweenness scores measure prominence based on the researcher being the path between different areas in the network. A high betweenness score may indicate someone who cited a wide range of scholars, or were cited by a wide range of scholars. The former may have been the source of McCarty and Dunsdorfs’ high betweenness. While they were outside the norm of the economic history community, they did explicitly connect this literature to the international economic history community, and the agricultural economics disciplines respectively. By measuring prominence in an intellectual community not just by how much they are cited, but their role in connecting domains of knowledge, highlights previously neglected scholars in this community.

127 A. Birch, 'Review: Dunsdorfs, The Australian Wheat-Growing Industry, 1788–1948', Business History Review, 31, 03, 1957, p.338

128 More deductive work instead emerged through a more general connection to the economics discipline, and the US economic history community. See chapter 9.

129 Davidson’s citation analysis demonstrates this. The only economic historian Davidson cited was Dunsdorfs, and his work was not cited by any of the economic historians in this period.

130 McCarty made it into the top 30, but Dunsdorfs and Davidson did not.

131 Sinclair; Dingle/Davison; Merrett interviews.

132 Particularly W. A. Sinclair, The process of economic development in Australia, Melbourne:

Cheshire, 1976. Sinclair interview.

133 Dunsdorfs at 5^th place, McCarty at 15^th in Table 7.2.

156 7.2.3. The analytical school continues

There was a small group of scholars who adopted an approach similar to the analytical school of the interwar period. Cain, Bailey, and Blainey notably adopted a realist and narrative-based approach. Bailey’s work focussed on a single firm in the pastoral industry – the AML&F Company – with considerable use of qualitative company records, and the discussion of individual company decision-makers.¹³⁴ Similarly, though Blainey did discuss the development of the mining industry as a whole, a significant portion of his work was devoted to specific case studies.¹³⁵ Tyranny of distance was also less quantitative than the orthodox approach, incorporating correspondence, diary entries, and descriptions of real actors and events.¹³⁶ Cain, when analysing the pastoral industry, focussed on the

experience of 10 specific stations in the western division of New South Wales, rather than aggregating discussion of the industry as a whole.¹³⁷ Bauer, in The simple fleece, examined the experience of specific sheep stations in Northern Australia.¹³⁸

Chapters in Abbott and Nairn’s edited volume also adopted a realist, narrative-based approach, with chapters focussing on documentary sources and detailed case studies.¹³⁹ Walsh, Hainsworth, and Steven each published articles similar to their chapters in the AEHR.¹⁴⁰ Also in the journal, pieces by Birch, Ginswick, Hughes, Blainey, Cain, and Fogarty adopted the analytical approach. There was little, if any, aggregation or abstraction in these works. They included some quantitative material, but it was used sparingly to demonstrate points in the narrative. The analysis was inductive, with very little use of

134 Bailey, Pastoral banking.

135 Blainey, Rush that never ended.

136 For example, see his description of Captain Cook. See Blainey, Tyranny of distance, p.9.

137 Cain, 'Companies and squatting'; Cain, 'Companies and squatting'.

138 F. Bauer, 'Sheep-raising in Northern Australia', in Barnard, ed., The simple fleece, Canberra: ANU Press, 1962.

139 Chapters by Nairn, Joyce, Robinson, Stevens, Shaw, Hainsworth, Walsh, and Rimmer were very realist. However, as an edited collection with a small level of social integration and imposed consistency on the part of the editors, approach between chapters varied. Chapters by Fieldhouse, Hartwell, and Fletcher were more aggregated and abstracted.

140 G. P. Walsh, 'The geography of manufacturing in Sydney, 1788-1851', Australian Economic History Review, 3, 1, 1963; M. J. E. Steven, 'The changing pattern of commerce in New South Wales, 1810-1821', Australian Economic History Review, 3, 2, 1963. Steven’s article was the same as her chapter - Syd Butlin gave Abbott and Nairn permission to re-print the AEHR piece. See Abbott and Nairn, ed. Economic growth of Australia, p.4.

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theory,¹⁴¹ and conclusions were based around qualitative sources rather than the use of aggregated quantitative data.

Because of the dominance of the orthodox school, and its ‘revision’ of the older, analytical approach, there was recognition that these texts were a bit ‘dated’. As a result, criticism generally centred on the poor engagement with broader macroeconomic trends, and the absence of economic theory. Although Blainey’s work on mining was praised for its

“spirited, forcible, and colourful” prose, Barnard argued that the text lacked substance.¹⁴² He commented that Blainey let scholarship suffer in an attempt to tell a good story, criticising the lack of footnotes, questioning his appointment to a senior position in economic history, and commenting that “to allow the unexplored hypothesis to gain […], an aura of simplicity and heightened plausibility is a distinct disservice to history”.¹⁴³ Similarly, Sinclair criticised the realist elements of Abbott and Nairn’s edited volume, arguing that the weight attributed to “traditionally heroic figures” was exaggerated.¹⁴⁴ Members of the orthodox school argued that while Bailey’s text was “authoritative and lively”,¹⁴⁵ and “well devised and executed”,¹⁴⁶ a more “rigorous and critical analysis could have been made”.¹⁴⁷ Both Barnard and Boehm criticised Bailey’s lack of engagement with economy-wide issues, with Barnard arguing that Bailey did not take advantage of the opportunity to develop a more general picture of the industry.

Table 7.4 indicates that the analytical methodology formed only 23% of the corpus in the 1950s and 1960s. This was partially due to the dominance of the orthodox school and the division between orthodox work and the history discipline. Analytical economic history, with more cues to the method of the historian, found very little space in an orthodox-dominated community. The approach found a home in the AEHR, forming the majority of

141 Fogarty’s piece engaged with McCarty’s adaptation of the staples approach, but disagreed with the import of theory. He argued that McCarty’s analysis did not give adequate consideration of the role of government in economic development. See J. Fogarty, 'The staple approach and the role of the government in Australian economic development: The wheat industry', Australian Economic History Review, 6, 1, 1966.

142 A. Barnard, 'Review: Blainey, The rush that never ended', Australian Economic History Review, 4, 1, 1964, pp.85-6.

143 Barnard, 'Review, Blainey', p.87.

144 W. A. Sinclair, 'Review: Abbott and Nairn, Economic growth of Australia 1788-1821', Economic Record, 46, 116, 1970, p.601.

145 E. Boehm, 'Review: Bailey, A hundred years of pastoral banking', The Economic History Review, 20, 2, 1967, p.407.

146 A. Barnard, 'Review: Bailey, A hundred years of pastoral banking', Historical Studies, 12, 48, 1967, p.600.

147 Boehm, 'Review: Bailey', p.408.

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articles published in the journal in the 1960s.¹⁴⁸ The fledgling nature of the AEHR at this time, and its initial purpose as a business archives report, made it open to the approach of the analytical school. Analytical economic history, in the journal and in the whole corpus, remained an important minor current of published work.

Authors adopting the analytical methodology lacked influence in this period. Cain and Blainey were cited relatively frequently by other members of this community, with in-bonacich power scores similar to their orthodox peers.¹⁴⁹ However, other analytical scholars, particularly those that contributed to the AEHR, were not cited widely by other economic historians. In a similar way to the deductive tradition, prominence for analytical scholars emerged through betweenness. Table 7.2 indicates that Steven, Cain, Bailey, and Birch were amongst those with the highest betweenness in this community. Blainey had particularly high betweenness, ranking just after Noel and Syd Butlin. This indicates that the contribution of analytical scholars to the economic history community was by connecting this domain of knowledge to other areas.